"Mr. Burgess has invented complex, varying people, and he has moved them well, giving them much to suffer and to do. . . .In the closing pages, Burgess has set off a wild joke in which all his themes--poetry, England, race, love--crackle and sparkle in a gloriously funny surprise. . . .The book is. . .a nicely controlled examination of some human predicaments that is cunningly disguised as entertainment." --Naomi Bliven, <em>New Yorker</em>
